Conrad Black takes time out of his busy schedule to endorse Sarah Thomson

Conrad Black takes time out of his busy schedule to endorse Sarah Thomson

There are some endorsements that a campaign could be excused for running away from. When a convicted felon, say, sends a campaign donation, the smart thing to do is return it promptly. So we’re more than a little curious to see how the Thomson campaign reacts to the strong endorsement from a man who is still technically a convicted felon, Conrad Black. In his latest column for the National Post, he follows up on a column he wrote in April by strongly endorsing Sarah Thomson for mayor.

I don’t wish to sound like a school-teaching stickler in denigrating Rob Ford’s intellect, but anyone who says, as Mr. Ford did, that “They have other fish to fry beside feathering their own nest” is not fit for high public office. Smitherman is just a drop-out from the McGuinty economic miracle that has made Ontario a have-not province. Rossi and Pantalone are ineffectual panderers to right and left, respectively (though at some candidates’ meetings, they may have got their directions mixed). Sarah Thomson is the only one who has an original program, and is untainted by the gravy train Rob Ford abhors….

There is no more that is wrong with being a woman than there is anything wrong with the Hepburn white hope, Smitherman, overtly pitching to gays, Ford to the heavy-set Archie Bunkers, and Rossi and Pantalone to the right and left of the Italian community. The real question is where are the other women; and the answer is that they haven’t come forward because uptight gender-bothered stuffed shirts in the municipal media have ignored Thomson.

Now, there’s the additional wrinkle that Black’s son Jonathan is “modestly” assisting the Thomson campaign, making us wonder exactly how many scions of Upper Canada College are employed by the Thomson office.

While we’re not sure if Black’s endorsement is sincere or simply the result of Thomson’s being the only campaign he heard about while he was in the clink, we do wonder what the Thomson campaign is planning to do with that endorsement. “Thomson supporters are frequently found not guilty of two-thirds of the charges against them” doesn’t have quite the ring a winning campaign is looking for, we wager.

And now Thomson is making an announcement at 10 a.m. this morning “concerning the landscape of the mayoral campaign,” so we guess we’ll find out what’s more impeccable: Black’s timing or his political soothsaying.

Conrad Black: Sarah Thomson, the woman Toronto needs [National Post]

(Images: Black, Oldmaison; Thomson, Tsar Kim)